I’m just wondering what people’s thoughts are about in-season weights during high school track seasons. meets start early december and go until late february for the indoor season, so its not a typical season length, so im not sure what to do. its a long enugh period of time that i cant just unload the whole season because id lose too much strength, but i know that weights should be de emphasized for speed work at the meets (sometimes multiple meets/week).
any thoughts/advice?
i’m thinking about unloading only cns heavy lifts (bench, squat, any other triple digit lifts…) during december, putting them back in for january then tapering for the big meets at the end of february. i am a hard gainer, so i will continue hypertrophy based lifts (8-12 reps, more isolated muscle lifts) all the way until i taper them for february. i plan on doing low intensity core work the whole season, and increased high intensty core work while i unload in december
i’d keep the upperbody lifts in and not worry about unloading them. Just be sure that you are atleast 3 days out from your meets for heavy bench. Squats and deadlifts I am not a big fan of because they leave me with a bunch of tightness. I would drop these or do them with MUCH lighter weights if you were to leave them in.
Lifting HEAVY is not really that important in season. Just try to get a moderate amt of stimulation from weights and you should be fine.
what if my bench isnt very heavy, and i never do sets of less than 3 reps? my max is probably low 200’s, so could i do benching closer to meets and probably be okay? (esp because many of the meets are worthless handtimed duel meets, and i plan to use them as training sessions)
what would you reccommend switching in for squats to get a lower body stimulus? they have been a block of my leg strength program, so i am afraid if i drop TOO much emphasis on them then my strength levels could deplete along with some start power
i would listen to your body more than anything. If you feel like your losing explosiveness or strength, it would probably be beneficial for you to keep up with your strength training.
Myself: If i squat during the season-- Im waay to tight and slow on meet day. I drop them all together and feel great. If you have a break in between meets… like 10 days off… getting a heavy squat workout in would probably be great. Also, it depends on how long your season is. Sounds like its pretty long, thus, making it hard to totally abandon squats/etc.
but i’d listen to your body more than anything. In season is all about feeling good and being ready to go on race day. The training shouldn’t beat you down like it did in the offseason
of course, however, squats have been my primary lift, and i dont think i ever have ten days between meets (i sometimes can have up to 3 a week!). would doing squats postmeets at like 85% likely be harmful to developing top speed?
didn’t charlie say ben did his 2x6 with 600 on squat like 3 days before setting the world record? that seems waay to close to meet day, but if true, heavy squats must have positively effected his race performance.
that would be quite different than my race day taper.
question: how important are your races leading up to the end of the season? i assume you have some sort of “championship” or something at the end that you would want to be at your best for?
Well, i would recommend doing squats 1x week just to keep in shape for that, but that might hurt your other races too much. But doing any less would make you too sore after the squat work.
difficult question. i guess im not helping much, but hopefully one of the more knowledgeable posters on here can help you (and me :)) out.
haha, i may squat lightly once a week, and slightly heavier another time each week. and i really dont care about any meets but those at the end of february. my team has enough depth for me to be at sub best until then
I cannot recommend Charlie’s materials enough for those in your situation who require the deepest possible understanding of sprint training.
Assuming a general organism strength approach will widen your view considerably regarding the many variations of weight training that may effectively carry one through SPP and the competition calendar.
Establish high enough general strength levels pre-season in a concurrent fashion, on the lifts of your choice, then arrange those lifts serially throughout the competition calendar; thereby only requiring one primary weight training exercise to serve as the primary general organism strength stimulus with the rest being performed in an auxiliary/supportive fashion until it’s their turn to assume the primary role in a subsequent block.
I won’t go much further on this topic here because Charlie already did that for us.
from my recollection these are 2 separate events and just like every good story contain enough elements of truth to be believable.
Ben squatted 600lbs and Charlie questioned why he needed to go higher due to increased risk of injury. From what I understand this was completely separate from any races and certainly not linked to a WR.
Ben benched a PR in the week leading into the 1988 100m final where he ran a WR time. This was due to Charlie getting the colours / weights of the plates mixed up.
John is correct. Re: squatting, I can’t say for Ben specifically, I don’t remember if that was mentioned. But during the final taper the last squat session should take place 7-10 days out, depending on the athlete, of course and numerous other factors.
Although I was never disappointed by any of Charlie’s products, I guess the Weights series would be most appropriate for you, provided you are at least familiar with the CF training system. Not to reply for James, of course.
Ben’s 2x6x600 was not performed the final week prior to Seoul. As a testament to his strength, he did perform that session on a different occasion, however.
Approximately 7 days out from Seoul, Charlie Stated that Ben worked up to ~500 for two sets of 5-6 reps in the squat if I recall and then 3 days out he mistakenly worked up to ~450lbs in the bench due to a miscalculation in converting the kilo plates to pounds.
As for which products to buy, I endorse everything I own of Charlies. Regarding this particular discussion, the weights for speed are surely appropriate.
When dealing with high school kids, one needn’t overthink things. I would just make sure that they don’t have to deal with a lot of adaptive stiffness and, when it’s time to compete, their legs are relatively fresh.
As Charlie has said before, high intensity core work is addressed by the sprinting itself.
Are you’re talking 8-12 reps for squats? That’s a lot of eccentric damage which I wouldn’t want in-season.
i never go above 8 reps for squats, and this was months ago, and i would only do one set at that many reps. 8-12 reps would be for other supplementary exercises like rev hypers, calf raises, rdl, etc. any big power exercises (deadlift, squat, olympic lifts, bench) i prefer to never go over 5 reps
for upper body lifts i do almost all lifts besides bench and sometimes row in the 8-12 range
With higher level athletes be careful with testing maxes, for example a top level shot putter should never test 1RM as it is too high and potential for injury too great. Ben stopped progressing his squat poundages as the chance of injury was too great, he could squat 600lbs, did he really need to go higher? At some point the possibility of serious injury outweighs the need to keep adding weigh to the bar.
regarding this topic… weights for speed? GPP essentials? thanks